I’m really looking forward to re-meeting Maja this evening.-She’s had a lot on her plate the last few years, so i’m very please she’s agreed to speak Tonight.   Maja was the speaker at the first ever Network meeting I attended, – and her insights into how to give your writing different styles depending on who you’re writing for, has stayed with me for ages (and also her predictions as she had us writing headlines about Gordon Brown replacing Blair about 3 years before it happened!)

Here is a bit of background in her own words

“I was an award-winning business journalist and features editor on various trade titles at Haymarket Publishing until 2001, when I decided to go freelance. I wasn’t terribly good at taking orders, having meetings instead of getting on with the job, or doing office politics, and I’ve never looked back. My last proper job was working on PRWeek, the leading business title for public relations professionals. As more and more of my old contacts asked me to take on copywriting projects, my solo career evolved rapidly from being a jobbing business features writer into a full time copywriter specialising in working with PR and marketing teams on written marketing materials. These range from website content to drafting entries for business awards.

I’m also a trained life coach, and although I no longer coach individuals, my coaching experience has informed my work with my clients, particularly in establishing what their business and personal values are. This informs the language and written style and tone they use in their marketing collateral, and ensures their voice sounds authentic, and stands out from their competitors. I’m rather strict about businesses avoiding the sort of language they think they ‘should’ be using, including industry jargon, and communicating with personality, clarity and meaning for their target audience. I came up with the name of my company – Besparkle – at five o’clock one morning, when I woke up with the realisation that what I was doing was helping my clients to sparkle through really good writing.

I’ve been married to Andrew, a recruitment outsourcing specialist, sometime Freddie Mercury impersonator, and cycling enthusiast (this week…) since 2000; we’ve been together since we were at school in Salisbury. We’ve got two gorgeous children – Bridget, who’s five and a half, and Rupert, who will be four-and-one-week when he starts school this September, and I feel very lucky that my work is totally flexible around school and pre-school hours. That does mean plenty of ‘late shifts’ after the childrens’ bedtime, but like most small business people, that goes with the territory. We live in Burpham, and I’ve recently been signed off for a year by the oncology team at the Royal Surrey after a rather interesting 18 months telling stage 3 breast cancer where to get off! Oh, and I’ve just started writing my first novel: life’s too short to delay the fun stuff!”

it you’ve ever paused while writing marketing copy, and wondered how to best phrase what to say, – tips from Maya at this evening’s meeting will help.

I’ve been working with lots of voluntary organisations recently, and it’s made me realise how important it is to put a positive outlook on everything that you do.

We only got 22 people to come to the AGM, when you’ve “only” got 68 members is pretty fantastic, – that’s almost a 1/3.

We’ve “only” sold 15 tickets so far, 3 weeks ahead of an event where you usually sell 30-40 is almost 50%, – not “only” 15

and

“We can’t water the garden with a hosepipe from tonight”, – yes but if you’ve got water butts, on all your house downpipes, that won’t be a problem – because we’ve had enough rain this winter to fill them several times over (yes even in a drought!)

Forward planning and positive thinking can be such a uplifting way of getting on with life and making the most of what we’ve got.

Whereas negative thinking just drags us down and depresses us, whatever the situation.

Which are you going to choose today, – Negative, or Positive spin?

i’ve made my choice, and life is still looking rosy.

At last, Hurrah, – Horsley Station Parade has a Cafe.

Last Month, – Robin Johnston told us about how the Cafe was finally opening, and – after a fundraising day for local causes, it is now fully functional as a cafe, with delicious drinks, cakes and soup to tempt us already, and plenty more to come in coming months.

I was lucky enough to get a sneak preview of the wonderful artwork inside showing lots of our local buildings.

There’s plenty to look at while you’re sipping your tea and coffee. – Can you spot all the pubs and churches? – is your house one of the ones painted?

It’s been a long time since the Greengrocers closed in this parade, – so it’s great to have the space finally filled and functioning. – I’m trying to work out if the walk to the cafe will burn enough calories to enable me to eat the cakes.

The next of our Meet the Members is also our Speaker for March.

Andrew Smith, Andrew Smith research

Tell us about your business :

A market research consultancy established for 8 years in Bookham. Based from home with support from my wife Anne

Who are your customers? :    mainly UK based service sector companies in a wide range of sectors. Most clients are well-known brands like Odeon cinemas, Ancestry family history website and Brittany Ferries, but I also work for some local organisations, like Surrey Police and Mole Valley Leisure Centres.

What’s your biggest Challenge? Having enough time in the day to get stuff done; time management

What support would you like from the Horsley Business Network? Two pints of nice beer at each evening meeting. Seriously, already getting great support and networking from at least 4 members – so works a treat

What business in the village do you most admire? Flourish

Why did you decide to join the network? Fiona said I had to. I don’t argue with Fiona.

How would your customers describe working with you? See website: they keep coming back for more. I hope my real USP is translating survey evidence in to really useful and action-orientated stuff they use in their business, the next day. Too much market research does not get fully used once delivered.

How do they contact you/ where in Horsley/locally are you?  See website at www.andrewsmithresearch.co.uk I’m in Bookham and very happy to meet/discuss/network and support.

Customer Feedback :Why it really matters to your business what they think

What do your customers think about you? – How are you perceived? – Do they know the things that make you an expert.? – Gaining Feedback from customers is so important for any business , – because unless we know what they think, we can’t implement changes to help boost our profile and change their perception.

About the speaker

What will your talk cover?

Why feedback from customers really matters, whether IBM or Joe Bloggs haircuts

How you can get decent, objective feedback without spending much

Where to go to learn what to do; examples of good survey forms and approaches

What to do with data, and understanding trends over time

What will the audience be able to take away/ learn from your talk?

How to review and implement a good process for customer feedback

Why is attending your talk essential to small business’s in Horsley?

It’s essential for any business to know what their customers say and think and do

We havn’t had a member profile on the blog for a while, but i’m really please to say that our Membership offer last month encouraged 11 people to join, – so watch out for details of who comes along to our meetings regularly.

Lisa Cox, Lisa Cox Garden Designs

Tell us about your business

I’m a Garden Designer who passionately believes that it is my role to understand what my clients want to achieve.  I work closely with them to design and develop gardens that fit in with their lifestyle and enhance the way they use their outside living space.  My use of colour psychology enhances the design process as it enables me to truly understand my clients’ personal style and how this should be reflected in the garden I am designing for them.

Who are your customers?

Mostly families and couples in Surrey and the Home Counties, but I do work further afield and have undertaken projects in Leeds, Somerset and France.

What’s your biggest Challenge?

Often the garden is the last thing on the home improvements list and sometimes this means working with a new terrace or driveway which hasn’t really been considered in the context of the new house layout and the way it relates to the rest of the garden – other times the budget has been squeezed!

What support would you like from the Horsley Business Network?

I’d love to get to know more local business owners, to make friends and to develop working relationships with those businesses that are aligned with mine.

What business in the village do you most admire?

Surrey Hills Butcher – not in Horsley, but local to me in Oxshott.  I started going there 8 years ago and I’ve never looked back since – great knowledgeable service with a personal touch.

Why did you decide to join the network?

I knew the founding members and was invited to visit.  The speakers are interesting and inspirational and it’s great to meet in the evening – many networking groups meet during the day and I find this quite difficult to juggle at times.

How would your customers describe working with you?

Passionate, listened to what we wanted and found a way to include it all.

How do they contact you/ where in Horsley/locally are you?

Tel: 07776 255997 Website: www.lisacoxdesigns.co.uk Follow me on twitter: www.twitter.com/lisacoxgardens.  Based in Leatherhead.

I first met Sheree a couple of years ago on an Amovita Netwalk in Richmond Park. She has embraced Social Media , and although i’ve only met her once more since then, I feel I know her well through conversations that we’ve had on Twitter and Linked In and work she’s done for me as a VA. – She seemed the ideal person to let us know about a subject I know confuses a lot of us. – Over to Sheree for a description of what she does in her own words

I chucked in my job as a PA 2 years ago because I thought admin was boring and became a Virtual PA. Turned out that admin was STILL boring whether you have a boss or not, but I loved creating something useful, networking, meeting people, and especially growing my business through social media – so I decided to specialise as a social media VA. After awhile I realised people were asking me to do stuff I knew wouldn’t work, or they knew what they wanted to achieve but didn’t understand the media enough to know how to get there, so I started including training and advising in what I offer.

I help people use social media to talk to their customers, build relationships, provide better customer service – and to convey online what people love about you in real life. I will never ever ever ever EVER encourage automation of your social media (except in one instance!) J It’s like hosting a party and leaving a voice recording at the front door to greet your guests. It’s far too important to be left to a machine

If you have specific questions you’d like to ask me on the day about your profile (either publicly during the talk or privately afterwards) pop along to http://uk.linkedin.com/in/shereelowe and add me as a connection, mentioning that you’re from Horsley Business Network in the message

Last Months talk by Venessa really got me thinking. I fully believed that I did regularly work on my business, not in it, – but since looking long and hard at what I did last year, I realised that maybe i’d let things slip. – So here are the points I got from the talk.

You are 100% responsible for your business, – you need to be committed, as well as doing your business, you need to be a Marketeer of your services.

Mark Twain originally come up with the numbers that equate to

1% of business’s are Brilliant 4% are doing great, 15% are good, 60% are just getting by and 20% are failing. – I really want to be in the top 20%

It’s not your customers job to remember to follow up on something. 97% of business’s don’t follow up more than 4 times, – however research has shown that 85% of people don’t buy until the 5th point of contact.

Are you waiting for the next email newsletter to drop into your inbox (this was a big duh point for me) – you need to encourage people to want information from you, – free information, special offers.

Most business owners are World class at ‘getting ready’ – when you need something to happen, – commit to a date, and achieve completion, not perfection.

Don’t be afraid of failing, – it’s ok if things don’t alwasy go to plan, – learn from it and start again.

So during this last month, – My new website has gone live. – It isn’t perfect, it is a work in progress, and i’ll need to work more on it, – but I am spending time on my business, not in it on a regular basis.

If anyone wants to follow Vanessa’s hints and tips further, – her Twitter address is @VanessaLanham – or go to her website which more information about the Entrepreneurs Circle that she runs.

February, – Snow and Freezing temperatures. – As a gardener, these last couple of weeks should have been an excellent opportunity to catch up on my admin and get ahead (using all Venessa’s tips from last month) on my marketing for this year. But no, – i’ve spent the last couple of weeks getting back lots of information after my computer died on me.

I ignored the signs that my computer was groaning under the strain, and that I should have budgeted in a newer more up to date model last year, not this.

After 2 weeks of copying information in from various sources, I am now back up and running. – Don’t waste 2 weeks of your time, – Are you all backed up?

Vanessa Lanham-Day  runs CProject, which is a small Surrey-based marketing and communications consultancy.  She works for a lot of financial planners and IFAs, as well as all sorts of SME businesses.

She describes herself as a “no-nonsense, practical marketer”, and says “Sorting the brand strategy and the big picture planning side of things is right up my street, but so too is the detail of implementation. I really enjoy getting stuck in and being part of my client’s team.”

Vanessa is currently working with Nigel Botterill and his team at the Entrepreneur’s Circle, and told me how she got to that point

“In 2003 I decided to cut my team right back and give myself the ultimate freedom of working on my own. It has been a really liberating experience – enabling me to try other business options, including building a property portfolio and owning retail knitwear business. I especially enjoyed building up our online knitwear business from scratch seeing customers grow from zero to over a thousand today.

It’s a very different marketing to business to business, and it has helped me support a number of retail clients as a result.
I recently have sold the knitwear business and am now really excited about working more closely with Nigel and his team Being a Business Growth Advisor fits perfectly with my interest in mentoring growing businesses and means I can offer my marketing experience to the people who really need it, without having to worry if they can afford me!

On a personal note, I’m married to the gorgeous – and very patient! – Steve. We’ve been together since 1978 but only married in 2003 – after I proposed to him. We tied the knot on our 25th anniversary in a surprise wedding! I love doing outdoor things and being in the gym – often to be seen on my road bike too. I may not be that talented but enthusiasm counts for a lot!”

She’s a great candidate to speak to us at the Horsley Network this month as she’s been awarded the prestigious title of Business Growth Advisor of the Year for 2011 – due in no small part, I’m assured, by absolute passion for helping business owners achieve their potential and dreams.